I'm not sure if there was ever one specific event that made me 'convert' and stop doubting. I think it was just the amalgamation of everything that happened. I.e. seeing the existing team members interact with each other and myself and across the org. Of course not everything was/is rosy there either but overall it's just not a place where finger pointing happens on the developers level. We work together and help each other out. Nobody is going to say "sorry I don't have time to help you with your problem". You will most likely get multiple people offering to help you out.
The fact that there were no individual metrics to hit for each team member I think also contributed to this. Nobody is going to loose their raise because they spent time helping you onboard or debug with you instead of just making sure they hit their own metrics. Monthly birthday celebrations w/ cake and nobody blinked an eye that everyone was chatting and eating for an hour or two. A perpetually filled fridge and fresh fruit - I never had to bring lunch. Catered breakfast regularly (tho not every day). And the part that I couldn't believe was that this wasn't actually to make you stay at the office for 14 hours or something. Everyone still left at the regular times. This is the part I couldn't believe.
All of this will probably become harder here too as we grow more and more. And some of these perks are gone since Covid but I don't mind getting full remote working. I'll take that over free breakfast and lunch any day ;)
Thanks! This, minus the free food, reminds me of the previous few jobs I've had :-) -- in fact I haven't experienced the finger pointing look-after-oneself-only culture (and seems never will happen).
What you wrote gives/reinforces nice ideas about how to build an ok workplace, thanks :-)
I wonder, what were some events that affected how you were thinking